Feline Deities
Mar. 14th, 2007 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ikhet_sekhmetComplete Gods and Goddesses has an entire section on cat and lioness deities! Alongside the familiar ones like Mahes and Pakhet, there are gods I've never even heard of: the sphinx earth god Aker, Apedamak, Mekhit, Menhyt, Mestjet, the twin lions called Ruty, Seret, Shesmetet, and Tutu.
Mahes was Bastet's or Sekhmet's son, a war god, storm god, and "guardian of sacred places". He's shown as a lion-headed man, holding a knife, wearing a kilt and the sun disk and uraeus, the atef crown, or Nefertem's lotus headdress. His main cult centre was Taremu (Greek Leontopolis, modern Tell el-Muqdam).
Pakhet's name means "she who scratches" or "tearer". She was called "goddess at the entrance of the wadi". The Coffin Texts describe Her as "a night huntress with sharp claws". She was identified with Weret-Hekau, Sekhmet, Isis, and by the Greeks with Artemis. There was a "whole cemetery" of cats dedicated to Her at Speos Artemidos.
Goddess of moisture and twin of Shu, Tefnut was represented as a lion-headed woman with a large uraeus for a headddress, or the solar disc and uraeus; or as a lioness, a lion-headed serpent, or "a rearing serpent upon a sceptre". She once quarrelled with Ra and exiled herself to Nubia; Thoth convinced her to return. She and Shu were worshipped as a pair of lions at Leontopolis; her other main cult centre was Heliopolis.
Apedamak was a Nubian war-god, with fantastic forms including a serpent-lion and a man with three lion heads and three atef crowns, looking rather Hindu. He may hold a sceptre with a lion's head with an atef crown. He was worshipped alongside Egyptian deities in Nubia, for example in the "lion temple" at Naqa, and also in a triad with Isis and Horus.
Mekhit, a lioness goddess, was consort of Onuris and could take the role of the Eye of Ra. (Complete Gods has a separate entry for Menhyt, but if the Tour Egypt site is correct, they're actually the same goddess.) Mestjet is a lioness goddess known from a single stela.
Shesmetet, "lady of Punt", was apparently a personification of the shesmet girdle, a goddess who became identified with Sekhmet or Bastet. In the Pyramid Texts, she's the king's mother; in later funerary texts, the deceased person's mother. She was invoked in prayers and spells as a protector.
Tutu, "venerated mainly in the Graeco-Roman period", was Neith's son, and kept away demons. He was depicted either as a lion, or as a creature with the body of a lion, a human head, a bird's wings, and a snake for a tail. (There's a recent book about him, The Egyptian god Tutu : a study of the sphinx-god and master of demons with a corpus of monuments.)
Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Thames and Hudson, London, 2003.
Mahes was Bastet's or Sekhmet's son, a war god, storm god, and "guardian of sacred places". He's shown as a lion-headed man, holding a knife, wearing a kilt and the sun disk and uraeus, the atef crown, or Nefertem's lotus headdress. His main cult centre was Taremu (Greek Leontopolis, modern Tell el-Muqdam).
Pakhet's name means "she who scratches" or "tearer". She was called "goddess at the entrance of the wadi". The Coffin Texts describe Her as "a night huntress with sharp claws". She was identified with Weret-Hekau, Sekhmet, Isis, and by the Greeks with Artemis. There was a "whole cemetery" of cats dedicated to Her at Speos Artemidos.
Goddess of moisture and twin of Shu, Tefnut was represented as a lion-headed woman with a large uraeus for a headddress, or the solar disc and uraeus; or as a lioness, a lion-headed serpent, or "a rearing serpent upon a sceptre". She once quarrelled with Ra and exiled herself to Nubia; Thoth convinced her to return. She and Shu were worshipped as a pair of lions at Leontopolis; her other main cult centre was Heliopolis.
Apedamak was a Nubian war-god, with fantastic forms including a serpent-lion and a man with three lion heads and three atef crowns, looking rather Hindu. He may hold a sceptre with a lion's head with an atef crown. He was worshipped alongside Egyptian deities in Nubia, for example in the "lion temple" at Naqa, and also in a triad with Isis and Horus.
Mekhit, a lioness goddess, was consort of Onuris and could take the role of the Eye of Ra. (Complete Gods has a separate entry for Menhyt, but if the Tour Egypt site is correct, they're actually the same goddess.) Mestjet is a lioness goddess known from a single stela.
Shesmetet, "lady of Punt", was apparently a personification of the shesmet girdle, a goddess who became identified with Sekhmet or Bastet. In the Pyramid Texts, she's the king's mother; in later funerary texts, the deceased person's mother. She was invoked in prayers and spells as a protector.
Tutu, "venerated mainly in the Graeco-Roman period", was Neith's son, and kept away demons. He was depicted either as a lion, or as a creature with the body of a lion, a human head, a bird's wings, and a snake for a tail. (There's a recent book about him, The Egyptian god Tutu : a study of the sphinx-god and master of demons with a corpus of monuments.)
Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Thames and Hudson, London, 2003.
